Statement

Ever since I started creating I’ve never thought of myself as an artist. I always stayed away from that label as it was intimidating and I thought it was undeserving of what I create. In classic mediums I never created works based on emotion. This thought put me in a box with labeling myself as an artist. I always thought art was about portraying emotions and putting it out for the world to see. I’ve come to realize this semester through multiple teachers and just learning more about myself and why I create that I am indeed an artist. I create things from inspiration in the world we all live in. Sometimes the emotion is there and other times it isn’t. But now I don’t worry if it is. I have learned to be more free in my process and more accepting in the final outcome of projects.

This doesn’t necessarily fall in line with what is in this portfolio . For me to come to this conclusion of why I make the art I do. I first had to try and create works from emotion. Most of this class was more emotional than my other works such as in “Prescription”  and in my game that talks about the circles I seem to fall into when finding “love” in the Digital age.  

Prescription 

The older I get the less trust I have in unconfident men 

And women for that matter

I remember the face of the unconfident from my younger years 

I remember seeing faces of two women discussing what to do with me next 

But I listened as any good child does 

My mother would listen just as any other worried mother would with

Being in The doctor's office for the 4th time this month 

She hated it 

Sure more than I ever did 

I never realized that that look my doctor had wasn’t normal

That that look stemmed from a lack of confidence in me

Or that me walking around the house angry 

so angry for no obvious reason was from her drugs

The doctor saying we can try this we can try that

She stuck to her script like a priest does to a bible 

Hoping to find something in there to fix all my problems

Lucky for me my mother lost religion some 20 years prior

She knew the bible wasn’t all healing 

Just as she left 20 years ago she left that day but this time holding my hand

She took me to a smart and confident woman the next day

This time I didn’t see two women worried 

This time It was only my mother 

She was scared just like the day before 

She was sure this was a lifelong thing for her son

That all that could be done was so on so pain management 

The other woman wasn’t so sure

She was confident to not manage the symptoms but to subdue them

She said dose reduction was needed 

I never heard that term before 

It wasn’t one more round of multiple steroids twice a day

Or other drugs that may cause harm or make me more bloated than a float on thanksgiving morning

But it was the light at the end of the tunnel 

And it was more clear than ever that it wasn’t a train like my mom thought

I got better fast 

It wasn’t over night but eventually I could breathe clear again 

A few months later I started leaving my asthma inhaler at home 

A year later I lost my inhaler 

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